Disclaimer

The term “YOU DESERVE IT” is emotive. It can be positive, but it can also be damaging.`

As such, a disclaimer is needed to set the record straight before any conclusions are jumped to.

The book, James’ story and the intention is positive. It’s about learning what you deserve, what you don’t and how to deserve more of what you want from life.

There is one thing to make truly clear to all readers of this book:

Some things in life, such as illness, accident and the death of loved ones are truly not deserved.

If you have anything truly terrible happen to you such as the above, then you truly don’t deserve it. I lost a parent to suicide and nearly died in the tsunami; neither situation I could influence, thus neither situation I deserved to be in.

You can’t deserve something you can’t influence.

What you do deserve is your reaction to the situation, your decision about what to do about it. If I had turned to drink and drugs to cope with my life events I would have deserved the result of my actions as an alcoholic/ drug user.

I could point the blame for my addictions at my life events but it wouldn’t have been the tsunami’s fault, nor my father’s.

And that’s the point.

It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do about it.

There is always a choice to be made. If you don’t like something you can change it, if you can’t change it you can change the way you think about it.

As you will learn, there is no such thing as “luck” or “fairness” just a series of events to which we seek to attach meaning to.

Taking responsibility for your actions towards that which you can influence and taking responsibility for how you react to the things you can’t influence are at the centre of YOU DESERVE IT.